


if you feel that (you're tongue tied)

by ninemelodies



Category: Yungblud (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tongue Tied (Music Video)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemelodies/pseuds/ninemelodies
Summary: This was the world Dom knew - this was the world he had watched rise-up around him. He remembered the Riots, vaguely - he remembered following them on social media before it was taken over, remembered that what he was seeing on the TV was not matching up with the eyewitness reports of people who had attended.A prequel to the story we all know - how Dom came to be the leader of a rebellion against a world that wants him silent.
Kudos: 4





	if you feel that (you're tongue tied)

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!! i've never really written anything like this before but i am OBSESSED with the tongue tied music video and i wanted to continue the story. this a prequel to the music video, and ends right about where the music video starts. 
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!

_Hssssss._ “Hello?” _Hssssss._ “Hello, is anyone out there?” The voice coming through the radio is obscured by white noise and the buzzing of a speaker on its last legs. “If you can hear this, yes, NewEarth is muting us. Once muted, we can’t eat, can’t drink, and eventually we starve. If you speak out, or speak up, you’ll be next. We’ve got to end this, if you can hear this, join us. Help us. We’re - ” 

The broadcast cuts off in a shower of static, and is quickly replaced by a jingling advert for NewEarth - the company that now controls the world. “This is your local NewEarth spokesperson speaking - the message you just heard was false. Residents who have been muted are released immediately and provided with proper sustenance. I repeat - ” A hand reaches out and turns the radio off. This is Dominic Harrison, the person who would become the key to dismantling the authoritarian rule of NewEarth. 

But that’s in the future. In the now, Dom is helping his parents clean out the attic, discovering, in the process, an ancient radio. Cited as a tool for inciting violence, any citizen broadcast radios were banned after the Riots. 

Dom places his elbows on his knees and leans forward. For a while, he had been harboring suspicions that the pretty facade of NewEarth and NewAngeles was hiding something sinister. 

NewEarth promised a lot of things in the beginning - clean water and air, jobs for millions, an end to the damage caused by climate change - but so far hadn’t delivered on any of them. First, NewEarth had taken over the economy. They quickly pushed any competition into bankruptcy and then bought out the corpse of the company that remained. It didn’t take long for NewEarth to have a hand in everything in the world. The NewEarth CEO claimed this was done in order to make it easier for NewEarth to implement their plans to clean-up the world, but all it really did was force millions out of jobs. 

Poverty grew - the wages for workers at NewEarth (for those still lucky enough to have jobs) remained stagnant, while the company continued to grow and grow. With all their newfound power and influence, NewEarth nominated a candidate to run in the next presidential election. 

They won. It was never explicitly said, but everyone thought it - the election was rigged. The software used to vote was owned by NewEarth, the buildings people voted in were owned by NewEarth. The government was now owned by NewEarth. 

NewEarth began to sweep any city that they considered ‘crime ridden.’ They never provided any statistics for their claims - nor did they seem to give any warning before a militarized police force was combing through the city, arresting and taking away anyone they deemed dangerous or suspicious. 

With the threats gone, NewEarth snapped up the abandoned real estate to build whatever they wanted. Shopping malls, fitness centers, high-end restaurants and expensive apartments. Eventually, NewEarth bought out most cities in the world. Dallas became NewDallas, Los Angeles became NewAngeles. Every city now owned by NewEarth was rebranded with the New, nevermind that nothing had really changed. 

Slums sprouted up around the outer edges of the cities. Populated by all those that the militarized police force had rounded up and moved, NewEarth was quick to use the people living there as a scapegoat for all the problems in the world. The people in the suburbs turned their noses up at the people in the slums, warned their kids about the dangerous people that lived there, but they never once seemed to remember that these people used to be their neighbors - friends too, in some cases. 

Eventually, it all burst apart. Someone had started rumors alleging that NewEarth was never going to deliver on any of their promises. They were going to continue to take and take and take until there was nothing left, at which point the executives, their families and rich friends, and anyone with any sort of money would leave. 

The people in the slums began to whisper of rebellion, of taking back what had been stolen from them. On May 15, 2028, there was a demonstration in the middle of NewAngeles. It was mostly younger people from the slums, people who had heard and believed the whispered rumors, people who were still too young and naive, people who still believed they had the chance to change the world if only they tried hard enough. 

It took five minutes for the militarized police force to be deployed. It took 15 for the first death to occur. The media spun it all as a riot, that the protestors had attacked the police. People fleeing from the scene claimed the opposite. The police had attacked them, unprovoked, perhaps under orders from the leaders of NewEarth. 

Of the approximately 700 people who attended the demonstration, 100 died and another 300 were arrested. It was the worst loss of life NewEarth had seen since taking control of everything. They used it to their advantage. 

NewEarth issued a statement the next day - NewEarth did not condone the violence started by the rioters the day before. The police force had just been doing their job and they had done it well. Then, they spun it even further. The riots were started and organized by a terrorist organization seeking to take over the suburbs and kill everyone living there. In order to prevent that from happening again, NewEarth would be sweeping the slums everyday from sundown to sun-up. Anyone found wandering the streets during this time would be muted. Anyone found spreading anti-NewEarth propaganda would be muted. 

NewEarth never did explain what muting was. No one in the suburbs cared to ask. The militarized police force came to be known as Silencers. 

Citizen broadcast radios were banned. Newspapers, TV, books - anything that could be used to spread rumors about NewEarth was taken over and controlled. But information still got around. People still talked, even the muted had learned sign language in order to continue their fight against NewEarth. 

This was the world Dom knew - this was the world he had watched rise-up around him. He remembered the Riots, vaguely - he remembered following them on social media before it was taken over, remembered that what he was seeing on the TV was not matching up with the eyewitness reports of people who had attended.

Those eyewitness accounts slowly got taken down, the accounts banned, and the information disputed in an official NewEarth report. And see, Dom’s parents had told him to just stay quiet - that it wasn’t his problem and wouldn’t ever happen to him. His dad worked for NewEarth as an engineer, and his mother was a secretary. There was no way NewEarth would allow their employees, or the family of their employees, to be harmed. 

And then one of Dom’s friends, Gabe, was found distributing illegal pamphlets highlighting all the inconsistencies in NewEarth reports and all the injustices being committed against the people in the slums. Gabe’s dad also worked for NewEarth, his other dad was a stay-at-home dad. Gabe was arrested. His dad was fired. Within days of getting caught distributing ‘terrorist propaganda,’ Gabe and his family were gone. The house was sold to another family, and the community moved on like nothing had happened. 

It made Dom’s stomach curl. His parents moved on like nothing happened, his other friend’s moved on like nothing had happened. A week after Gabe’s disappearance, Dom snuck out of the house. It was late, way past curfew for the city. If he got caught, he would be arrested. He could potentially be muted. 

It wasn’t like Dom to sit still when something could potentially be done. 

He followed the rooftops to the outer-edge of the city, until they became too pitted with holes for him to continue. Using an old ladder, he climbed into an alley and hid in the shadows until the Silencer patrol had passed. 

Dom found Gabe just inside the slums. 

Gabe was asleep in the doorway of a sagging building. Behind him, in the dim light, Dom could make out his friend’s parents - both asleep. They looked ragged, dirty and pale in the yellow light from the street lamp. Dom hated to see them like this. 

There were voices coming from around the corner. The telltale hiss of radio static had Dom scrambling into the shadows of the building to hide as another Silencer patrol passed. He pulled the broken door to as far as he could and pretended to be asleep leaning against his friend. 

The patrol paused outside the doorway. 

“Should we - ?” A voice asked - female, older. 

A man replied. “We’re already over our quota for the week, and he’s technically inside. But…” 

The man was interrupted by the harsh crackle of a radio. “Unit 223 - there’s a disturbance four streets over from your current location. Unit 225 is requesting back-up.” 

“Of course, captain. We’re en-route now,” the female responds. “Guess he got lucky,” she jokes, and Dom hears the radio snap back into its holder. “C’mon. Let’s go before we get into trouble.” 

As soon as the sound of the Silencer’s boots fade into the distance, Dom finds himself on his back with a piece of metal pressed to his throat. At some point, Gabe had woken up. 

“Gabe!” Dom harshly whispers. “It’s me Gabe, it’s me, it’s Dom.” 

Gabe’s eyes are wild and bright with fear, but when Dom starts to speak, they dim in recognition. Gabe leans back and removes the knife from Dom’s throat, but doesn’t move from where he’s got Dom pinned. He tilts his head, and the street light reflects off the metal plate screwed over Gabe’s mouth. 

Dom feels like he could cry. He’s too late to save his friend - if the rumors are true, the plates are almost impossible to remove without the right tools, and NewEarth had confiscated almost all of them. Gabe will die. 

“I’m sorry,” Dom says. His voice shatters the silence that had settled over the room and Gabe flinches. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” 

Gabe jolts forwards, drops his knife and slaps his hands over Dom’s mouth. 

Over the course of his life, Dom has been called many things - annoying, hyper,  _ loud _ \- and with Gabe’s hands pressed against his mouth he knows that he needs to be quiet, now more than ever. He reaches up and pulls Gabe’s hands off him by the wrist. “I’m sorry,” he says again, much quieter this time. “But I brought something for you. We’re going to figure out a way to help you, to take down NewEarth.”   


Dom reaches into his pockets and pulls out something that fits securely in the palm of his hand. It’s made of dark grey hard plastic, and the screen is dark. “It’s a pager,” Dom says. “My parents had a couple they forgot about in their attic.” He takes Gabe’s hand again and presses the pager into his palm. “Keep it. Use it if you need me, and keep me updated about what is happening here.”

Gabe takes it slowly, like he’s unsure. 

“It’s the only way I can think of to help.” Dom answers Gabe’s unspoken question. “Please Gabe, let me help now.” 

Finally, Gabe relents and nods. He shuffles to the side and lets Dom up. 

Dom beams. “Thank you.” Dom stands and brushes off his pants. “I’ve got to go now. I’ll contact you when I get home, okay?” At Gabe’s nod, Dom takes off into the night. 

True to his word, Dom messages Gabe as soon as he gets home. He doesn’t get a response that night, but Dom isn’t surprised. It was late when he left, and it’s even later now that he’s home. For now, he pulls open the vent near his floor, wraps the pager in a rag, and stuffs it inside. 

When he wakes up the next morning, he has a message waiting for him. It reads: _Thank you. I’m sorry._ _Find Susy. She can help._

It is surprisingly easy to track down Susy - they had all gone to school together. Dom remembers her, vaguely. She was one of the quiet ones in school, never in trouble, never drawing attention to herself but she was always kind. One time, when Dom had decided to wear nail polish to school she had been the only one to compliment him on it. Makes sense now, Dom figured, that she was doing what she could to help those who needed it. 

After school, she had moved across town, but Dom still saw her sometimes at the local bookstore. It was there he tracked her down again. 

She was surprised to see him. They hadn’t been very close friends in school, and definitely hadn’t spoken since then, but as soon as he mentioned Gabe, her face fell. “Follow me,” she said, and she motioned him behind the counter. 

“I know what happened to him,” was the first thing she said when the break room door closed behind them. “But why are you here?” 

Dom tugged on his necklace. “I want to help.” 

She eyed him carefully. “Are you sure? You know what happens if you get caught.”    
  
“It’s not about me anymore,” Dom said. “If it can happen to our friend, it can happen to anyone. I can’t sit by and watch more people suffer.” 

Susy finally relents. She turns around and pulls open a drawer. Inside is a false bottom that she prys up with a letter opener. “Take these. They’re the same pamphlets Gabe was handing out. Distribute them as best as you can.” Dom goes to take them, but she hesitates before releasing them. “Be careful,” she stresses. “NewEarth is like nothing we’ve faced before.”

Dom nods and takes the papers. He starts posting them around town, on lampposts and bulletin boards. He stuffs them into newspapers and replaces them. Anywhere he can place them that doesn’t seem too suspicious. He knows better than to hand them out personally. Anyone can be a spy, and with a newfound reward for any information that leads to the arrest of ‘terrorists,’ it’s even more dangerous. 

He stays in contact with Gabe, and passes any new information to Susy, who then uses it to update their pamphlets. 

One day, when he goes to pick up the updated pamphlets, Susy is nowhere to be found. There is a man in her place behind the counter, and Dom is immediately on edge. Last night, there had been an explosion in the slums. NewEarth said it was caused by terrorists, Gabe said NewEarth had set it off on purpose, as an excuse to up security. 

The door clicks closed behind Dom. The silence in the bookstore is overwhelming. “Is Susy here?” 

“No,” the man replies. “She won’t be back. What do you want with her?” 

Dom fidgets. Something about this isn’t right. “She was an old friend from school, I heard she worked here so I wanted to check in..”

The man snorts. “She’s been arrested, boy. Like I said,  _ she won’t be back. _ ” 

“Oh.” Dom’s mouth tastes like ash. “Guess I’ll just go then, thank you.”   
  
“Boy,” the man calls, and Dom freezes. “You aren’t involved in any of that terrorist shit, are you?” 

Dom laughs, but it sounds hollow. “Of course not.” The words burn coming up. “They’re just hurting people.”    
  
For a second, Dom thinks he’s been caught. That he hadn’t lied well enough to escape detection this time, but then the man nods. “Good, you know your place.” 

Dom has never left a building faster. 

It’s been over a week since Dom has heard from Gabe. It’s been almost a month since Gabe was arrested, and Dom is fearing the worst, but with the increase in patrols since the explosion in the slums two weeks ago, there is no way for Dom to sneak out again.

In the middle of the night, Dom’s pager goes off with a soft beep and Dom is awake in an instant. Gabe has messaged him finally, after weeks of radio silence. He gets up and pulls his vent loose - inside, the pager is blinking red. 

Pager in hand, Dom goes over to his desk and turns the lamp on. The message is short, “Meet me at Echo Park. Tomorrow, 10AM.” 

Something about the message doesn’t sit right with Dom. While Echo Park borders the slums, and would be easy enough to get to if someone from the slums wanted, it’s still technically part of NewAngeles. The other thing is...what could be so important that Gabe would want to meet Dom in person? 

Dom pushes aside the sick feeling in his stomach and decides to go anyway. He shows up 30 minutes early and loiters around the edge of the park with a neighbor’s dog he borrowed. It isn’t Gabe that shows up. It isn’t anyone Dom knows. 

At the time arranged, a group of three Silencers show up. They lock eyes with Dom instantly, and Dom knows the gig is up. He scoops up his neighbor’s dog and bolts. He loses them in the back alleys of the city and makes it home safely. He drops off his neighbor’s dog and runs into his house. 

Dom hates leaving his parents like this, but he won’t drag them into this. He writes them a short note, stuffs a few clothes into a bag, and bolts. The door to his house bursts open as soon as he steps foot onto the top of his stairs. 

“Freeze!” the Silencers yell. 

Dom bolts back the way he came. He throws open his window and escapes onto the roof. A hand grabs a hold of his pants leg and he  _ yanks _ . There’s a tearing sound, but he’s free. He scrambles forward, across one roof and then the other. He can hear the Silencers behind him, frantically trying to keep up with him as he zigzags his way across the city. 

He chances a look behind him, and that’s what takes him down. His ankle twists. He slides off the edge of the roof into a dumpster below him. He’s finally in the slums, but he still has Silencers on his trail. 

Suddenly, he’s being hauled out of the dumpster. He gets shoved into a doorway. The person who picked him up is muted. They hold a finger in front of the metal plate over their mouth and Dom gets the message.  _ Stay here. Stay quiet.  _

From his hiding spot, he hears the Silencers drop onto the concrete. “Where did the kid go?” one of them asks. There’s silence for a moment, and Dom hears a rustling that tells him the person who saved him is answering. 

“Ah, forget it. We’ve lost him.” 

Dom hears a radio get unclipped. A burst of static, and then one of the Silencers is speaking. “Captain, we lost him.” 

“Get back to base.” 

“Yes, sir.” The radio clicks back into its holster. “Let’s go.” 

The Silencers leave, but Dom doesn’t move. Not until the person who rescued him pulls him from his hiding spot and tugs him to a partially hidden doorway at the end of the alley. They shove over a few piles of trash and open the door. 

Inside is a group of people huddled together. Some of them have been muted, most have not. They all jump up when the door opens. 

“Eli! You’re back!” One of them cries, and Eli quickly motions for them to be quiet. 

An older girl stands up and makes her way over to them. “Who are you?” she asks. 

“I’m Dom.” 

She sticks out her hand. “Well Dom,” she says, “I’m Skip. Welcome to the rebellion.” 

Dom rises up the ranks of the rebellion quickly. He’s crazy enough to have plans no one had considered, and he’s loud, unafraid of the Silencers or of NewEarth. He draws attention everywhere he goes, and that’s good for the rebellion. The Silencers are too focused on Dom to realize what’s happening behind their backs. 

When he gets far enough, the people under him give him a nickname - he’s younger than the other leaders, much younger, and he gets dubbed the ‘youngblood.’ He changes it to YUNGBLUD, just because he can. That’s what the Silencers begin to know him as. His tag starts to pop up everywhere - on walls, on stickers, on spray paint across the windshield of Silencer vans. 

It shows up when Moth hacks into the Silencer system and figures out just where their friends are being taken when they get arrested. People in the slums are disappearing at an alarming rate, but no one has any idea where the Silencers are taking them. 

Moth, one of the rebellion’s best hackers, discovers the weakness in the Silencer’s servers shortly before summer really hits. They’re ecstatic when they show up at Dom’s door with a ton of stolen information and an idea to break their friends out of prison. Dom can’t help the surge of excitement when he realizes just  _ how much _ information Moth has found. 

This could change the course of the rebellion. Included in this information is a location for a stash of plate removing tools. Dom’s people are spread too thin as it is - Silencer raids have been increasing in the area. He thinks there is a spy among them, but he can’t say who. 

He contacts blackbear instead. Blackbear agrees readily to go track down the stash. The next day Dom gets confirmation that blackbear’s unit has stolen the entire stash of tools and is combing the slums to remove plates. It’s a turning point - it’s not enough. Dom starts planning the raid on the prison. 

The plans for the raid on the prison are almost complete when the sirens start. “Fuck!” Dom yells. He stands and rolls up the documents he had been writing on. They had figured the Silencers were onto them, had been reverse engineering Moth’s hack to figure out where it had come from, but they had estimated it would take another week before the Silencers could accurately pinpoint their location. Obviously, that estimate was wrong. 

Dom takes the rolled up documents and shoves them into his hologrammer. He sets it up on the ledge as people rush past him to barricade doors. He presses a button on it, and begins recording his message. “If you’re listening to this, I’ve been captured.” It’s a cliche start, but it works in a pinch. “Inside this hologrammer you can find plans for a raid on a NewEarth detention center. Many of our friends are being held there. Save them.” Dom brings up three fingers and presses them to his temple in a quick salute. 

There’s a bang, and then a shout. “The Silencers are inside!” The door to Dom’s room is barricaded, but it won’t take long before it’s broken down. 

Dom ends the recording and shuts the hologrammer off. When he turns around, the first person he sees is a new girl - he can’t remember her name. She’s looking at him, eyes wide, and Dom knows that if he wants any of this to succeed, the hologrammer  _ must _ make it out of this room. He thrusts the canister at her. 

“Find blackbear,” he says, as he pushes the hologrammer into her arms. “Use this exit.” He lifts up a panel on the floor. “The tunnel will lead you outside. Take it and run!” One of the doors to the room is beginning to buckle under the weight of people “Run!” He yells, and he shoves her into the tunnel and slams the panel shut behind her. 

She’s on her own now. 

Dom turns to face the Silencers who have just broken in. They stand there and stare at him for a moment, like they weren’t expecting to just  _ find _ a leader of the rebellion like that. “Well,” Dom taunts. “Come get some, you twats.” 

***

The Girl is in a dusty room, kneeling in front of an old TV, hand pressed against the static as she watches YUNGBLUD - Dom - be arrested and hauled out of Home and thrown into a Silencer van. 

He makes eye contact with the camera before he vanishes into the darkness, and she knows that he knows she is watching. She silently vows to deliver his message, no matter the cost. She will find blackbear. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! you can catch me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bludwoes)/[tumblr](https://ninemelodies.tumblr.com/)


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